EU OS

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Use Cases ​

WARNING

This page is work in progress. Related issue: #5

To make EU OS a success, it should support a large number of use cases and consequently a large user base. This helps to gather political support and funding for continous improvements and innovation.

NOTE

The following use case serve as an inspiration and do not imply a partnership unless explicitly expressed.

Some regions outside of Europe realised already the benefits of an operating system under their control (for the best and the worst of their users):

  • Astra Linux 🇷🇺 :

    Astra Linux is a Russian Linux-based computer operating system (OS) that is being widely deployed in the Russian Federation to replace Microsoft Windows.

  • Kylin and Neokylin 🇨🇳 :

    Kylin is an operating system developed by academics at the National University of Defense Technology in the People's Republic of China since 2001. […] Together, Kylin and Neokylin have 90% market share of the government sector.

  • Nova Linux 🇨🇺 :

    [Nova Linux] was central to the Cuban government's desire to replace Windows. Hector Rodriguez, Director of [University of Information Science in Havanna], said that "[t]he free software movement is closer to the ideology of the Cuban people, above all for the independence and sovereignty." Other cited reasons to develop the system include the United States embargo against Cuba which made it hard for Cubans to buy and update Windows, as well as potential security issues feared by the Cuban government because of the U.S. government's access to Microsoft's source code.

This leaves no doubt on the the feasibility of large-scale Linux deployments in the public sector. It is only a matter of political support, priority and funding.

Notable Migrations ​

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City of Munich (discont. migration) 🇩🇪 ​

"The city of Munich is migrating its desktop computers from Windows to GNU/Linux. After preparations began in 2003, the city's basic client, a customised version of Debian GNU/Linux, is being deployed on a growing number of PCs since fall 2006. The LiMux project puts great emphasis on becoming independent from software suppliers. Florian Schießl, the deputy project coordinator for LiMux, explains: Microsoft has shown us what it means to be dependent on a vendor."

"Until 2003, the city was using Microsoft Windows NT 4 across the board, and was by and large satisfied. When Microsoft decided to end the support for this operating system, this meant that hardware and important procedures would eventually stop working. It was from this experience of being totally at the mercy of an external party that we wanted to take the road to more independence , Schießl says."

– Case Study of Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), a project of the European Commission

References:

French Gendarmerie 🇫🇷 ​

Gendbuntu is possibly one of the largest Linux-on-desktop deployments in the EU public sector with about 82000 seats.

"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users," said Lt. Col. Guimard. "Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

– Interoperable Europe

"The transition [to Linux] went unexpectedly smooth. Almost no additional training was required for the local police forces using the computers in their daily work. […] The Ubuntu user interface was easy to get used to. Pascal Danek points out that a transition from Microsoft Windows 2000/XP to Vista would have been more difficult, since the new version of that [OS] introduces many new features and designs which might confuse users."

– Case Study of Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), a project of the European Commission

The French Gendarmie uses currently a customised version of Ubuntu called "Gendbuntu". If EU OS would be used instead, resources could be mutualised across all users of EU OS.

References:

Swiss Federal Court 🇨🇭 ​

"Until 2001 the court had a simple all-in-one IT platform, which lacked greatly in functionality and ultimately became outdated. The Court's IT direction thus saw the necessity to introduce a new IT infrastructure that would ensure sustainable standards in the future. During the analysis done as part of the planning process, open source software emerged as more sustainable than proprietary software, especially with regard to modularity and file formats. The use of open source software also ensured vendor independence and security, which are two very important aspects for a court. In 2001, the new IT system running on the operating system Solaris by Sun Microsystems was introduced. With this also came the introduction of the office suite StarOffice, the internet browser Firefox, and the email client Novell Evolution, besides other more specialised applications. At the early stages of the migration, users had to get used to the new programs, but as the migration from the previous system brought numerous improvements, the process went relatively smoothly and was broadly accepted. Where some doubts about open source software existed in the beginning, these have mostly faded by now.

– Case Study of Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), a project of the European Commission

References:

Linux Plus 1 in Schleswig-Holstein 🇩🇪 ​

The region (‘Land’) Schleswig-Holstein in the north of Germany prepares currently the migration of their entire public administration to a Linux desktop. This migration could become one of the largest Linux-on-desktop deployment in the EU public sector with 30000 of seats.

It is unclear which operating system will be used. Rumors say it will be based on KDE Plasma. If EU Os would be used, resources could be mutualised across all users of EU OS.

References:

CERN 🇪🇺 ​

The US Fermilab and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, already maintained their own operating system in the past: Scientific Linux. Unfortunately it reached end of life in 30 June 2024.

While CERN certainly can manage their devices without the support of EU OS, collaborating with the large hub of innovators would certainly strengthen EU OS to the benefit of all.

References:

Other Migrations ​

Click to reveal more references with migration projects

In principle, the list above should be quality-vetted and incorporated into the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters.

Early Adopters ​

The following use cases may be feasible with a few months up to two years of preparation.

Schools ​

The technical equipment of schools varies a lot between schools of the same country and even more across different countries. Some schools rely heaily on devices proposed by Google or Apple. Other schools have devices managed by a central body, rarely a local system administator and more often by tech-savy teachers. Devices may be too old to support a migration to the newest Windows release with again higher hardware requirements.

Schools usually have different types of desktop seats:

  • class rooms equipped with computers (e.g. for programming classes)
  • teacher offices equipped with computers (e.g. to prepare classes)
  • personal device for pupils (rare, think of iPads and Chromebooks)

Rarely teachers are offered a personal corporate device. It seems that schools commonly make resources available in the cloud that can be accessed by teachers on their own or family computers.

References:

Education, Research and Development Organisations ​

This category also includes universities.

to be developed

References:

Cities and Communes ​

Only few cities have migrated to Linux so far. Compatibility with the federal goverment and the plethora of business processes a city owns are a challenge. Oftentimes, reliance is strong on Microsoft Office, which historically did not run on Linux. With Microsoft 365 working in the browser, a work-around may be possible.

Few examples of cities are known that want to migrate to Linux or already migrated. In both cases, EU OS could help.

References:

Data Protection Authorities ​

Data protection authorities have good reasons to switch to EU OS:

  • Leading by Example: EU OS is data protection-friendly and gives the organisations as much control about data flows as they want.
  • Strengthening Independence: EU OS offers data protection authorities to investigate without any conflicts of interests all organisations relying on operating systems other than EU OS. They would just need to switch when the majority would have adopted EU OS. Sad! 😜

While ahead of migrations to Windows 11, data protection authorities wonder about alternatives, no data protection authority has yet announced to migrate to free alternatives. Many data protection authorities rely indeed on the central administration for their IT and have little influence on the process.

Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERT) ​

Computer emergency response teams are often full of technical experts that usually have some knowledge about Linux already. They may benefit from the flexibility and tools that Linux offers to carry out their investigations and analysises. EU OS could be a good fit.

Judiciary ​

References:

Large-Scale Use Cases (Late Adopters) ​

The following use cases may require several years of preparation. This is not necessarily specific to EU OS, but rather specific to the complex requirements of the given use case. A migration to Linux may require to make all business software compatible with Linux first.

European Institutions 🇪🇺 ​

A specific goal of EU OS is to get on the desktop of the administration of the European Union, including the European Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice. However, so far no migration plans to Linux are publicly known yet. Sad! 😜